Sotto Voce
by Grey4
Summary: In the here and now they serve together. But in the past, things were different.


Disclaimer: This work is intended for entertainment only, no profit is being made. All recognizable characters, names, and situations belong to Berman, Braga, and lots of other entities with much more money than me. No infringement is intended.  
  
Author's Note: This piece was directly inspired by nostalgia's "Vox Iuvenium." I strongly recommend reading that, and anything else penned by that author. Nostalgia graciously allowed me to extrapolate on the events in V I. Thank you nostalgia. This is my first foray into ENT-fic, any and all feedbacks and criticisms are welcome.  
"Sotto Voce"  
by Grey  
  
She is talking more than he, conversing rings around him. In the arrogance of her youth, she believes it is because she is smarter than him, has more interesting things to say. She will not believe the same later in her life.  
  
But for now she employs her weapons of choice, her sharp and precise verbiage, and attempts to dismiss him. The party is large and there are others to see, and other places to be seen.   
  
He catches her, however, with gentle quiet humor and a secret weapon: his name.  
  
Despite her best intentions, it's a prejudice of which she cannot rid herself: she judges people by their names. And his is so very interesting.  
  
In Hebrew his first name is spelled Yehonatan, and means "God has given." He tells her to call him by a shortened version, which actually means "God is gracious."  
  
His surname is another word for a hunter. A skilled, precise, deadly warrior. But he doesn't seem particularly deadly. He talks endlessly of space and travel. Of how the Earth looks from Jupiter. Of how he dreams of other worlds, millions of miles from the warmth of the sun.  
  
And he's making her laugh, employing a self deprecating humor that panders to her sense of invulnerable youth, impossible perfection. So she lets him follow her around the party, for his soft laugh and good moniker.  
  
And maybe, just maybe, for his eyes, which are a color she is having trouble translating.  
  
That night in her bedroom, because she likes to conduct these things on her own turf, she knows a moment of fear. His body looms over her, casting her in shadows. His smell is everywhere as his impossible eyes look right through her. Suddenly she feels she could be lost in this man. Drowned in his passions, whatever they may be.  
  
So afterwards, as her heart stutters back into place, she teases him about his age. Deflects his questions with more questions. And in the morning, she takes control back, playfully demanding his attention, and desperately grateful when he acquiesces.  
  
It is no accident that she is on top this time.  
  
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Their subsequent time together is marked by his profound stretches of silence. Droughts of unvoiced thoughts, peppered with the sudden deluges of rhetoric concerning his passion: space. Ships and fuel and warp core reactors and aliens. These things he speaks about at length and with ease. A sharp contrast to his clamped mouth approach to the rest of his experiences.  
  
Before him, she was always amused by the tongue-tied, the inarticulate. In a way, she still is. Still believes that his reticence simply emphasizes her mastery over this form of communication. Still believes that silences indicate passivity, surrender.  
  
Still, and yet, he is the beginning of the ending of that philosophy. His silences become more expressive than her diatribes, explain less only than his mutable gaze.  
  
Eyes like the sea, she thinks in her head. But she doesn't say it aloud. And it is a very quiet voice in the back of her mind that reminds her: she has always been afraid of drowning.  
  
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He is leaving her, but he doesn't know it. She has confused him by disguising his desertion as her departure. Cheerful and bright, she is hugging him good-bye. He's seen her with another man. She made sure of it.  
  
It hurts less that way. For them both.   
  
Later in life she will become impatient with people who speak any of the 170 native tongues of her homeworld. It will be frustration born of weariness, waiting for them to hurry up and get to the point. Because she knows the language, knows its limitations and what it's capable of, and is tired of listening to people plow through it and never get anywhere.  
  
But for now, she's desperately digging through his farewells. Searching for what he really means to say, what he really feels. And she's struggling against the tide that's been rising against her, the swelling realization.  
  
She's never cared for space travel, because what is space but an ocean with no up or down, a thousand ways to drown?  
  
She's leaving him because soon he will leave her. She's leaving him because he would sail those same oceans, whether the ships had canvas or not.  
  
She's leaving him because when she looks into his eyes she doesn't see herself reflected back; she sees starscapes. 


End file.
